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To Sara – Vinegar Pumps

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

Hi Sara,

Thank you for your telephone call.  It has taken a while for us to research your question, but your question opened other doors and presented information to us we weren’t looking for – so thank you and we enjoyed the research and hope this helps.

You wanted to know about finding “pumps” for your Organic Apple Cider Vinegar bottle as talked about in our blog on “More on Apple Cider Vinegar” published Monday, July 23rd, 2012.

It said “I put the second bottle in the bathroom after I found a pump which fit the top and which made my Apple Cider Vinegar bottle ‘pumpable’ for cosmetic purposes.”

We went back to the person who wrote the blog and found the following:

Such pumps are common.  We found them all over the place.  The person who wrote the blog used to buy lotion which came with a pump.  Since she saves everything she had a supply of the pumps which had been in her lotion bottles which she cleaned, stored and saved.  She told us how excited she was to find a use for the pumps she thought might languish on the shelf for years.  (A true hoarder in the making).  You might look around to see if you have such bottles to use their pumps when they are empty.

Lacking that we went looking other places:

Frontier Co-op has pumps in their catalog – try www.frontiercoop.com

Home Depot has pumps which can be used for all kinds of bottles.

The vinegar we use – Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with mother, quart size – is 2 centimeters around the top and most pumps will fit  for whichever size vinegar you buy.  We buy the quart size, which is the 2 centimeters (We called Bragg’s to make sure of the size of the mouth of the bottle).

Sometimes you can find a pump which fits the top of the bottle, but which you need to cut because it is too long to fit.  We would suggest you cut the bottom stem on the diagonal.

We also found pumps in CVS, Walgreens and more.  All of them were really inexpensive.

Hope all of the above helps.  If we come across a very elegant pump we will let you know!

In our quest for your pumps we came up with some interesting information.

We found one person, who bought her pumps from Frontier Co-op, who puts a quart-size bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar in her bathroom with a pump, but she also uses a pump on the olive oil mixture we suggested in another blog.  She pumps it out onto her rag to clean her floors.  In addition, she uses the same mixture as a lotion and since she doesn’t get what is in the bottle contaminated because of the pump, she uses the same mixture after her bath and to clean her wood floors.

That sounded a bit much for us, but we pass it along if you want to try this.

The Olive Oil mixture for cleaning floors is – one quart bottle Olive Oil (or whichever size you want to buy); add the juice from one or two organic lemons, depending upon the size of the bottle of Olive Oil; and to this add several drops of essential oil of whatever you like best.  We recommended organic essential oil of lavender because in a house that is a really soothing smell to come home to – you can almost become addicted to the smell.

If you want to also use that recipe for your body lotion, you might want to change the oil – roses, gardenia’s, every kind of flower or mix a couple essential oils as you put in a few drops of each into the bottle.

You can also use this on your hair for a little oil treatment or a bit on your hands after you wash your hair.  However, we prefer sticking to coconut oil for the hair because that seems to help control the curl.  If you have straight hair you might want to change that to the olive oil because it gives some curl – some people would say frizz.

Enjoy!

Call again if you can’t find the pumps.

All of us at Bettina’s

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Gluten Problems??????????

Thursday, March 7th, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc. for Marceline Donaldson

Many years ago I worked for The Pillsbury Company – for a brief time – with a long following law suit – which is the stuff of legend around my neighborhood. I offer that fact to you in the interest of full disclosure.

One, of the many things that upset me, happened when I was moved to International Marketing with one of my responsibilities being over the Silos.  It wasn’t something I actually did, it was an old hangover from another time, but the job description was never amended.

In the process of this tenure, I received a telephone call from the real manager of the Silos, the one who had been at Pillsbury for many years and who did the day to day managing of the Silos.  He informed me there was an infestation of bugs in the Silos and asked what he should do about it.

My immediate response was – throw out the flour in the Silos – you can’t sell flour to people which is or has been full of bugs.

He thanked me and hung-up.

Shortly thereafter my boss came along and said “Marceline, we can’t throw out the flour.  He wasn’t calling to actually get input from you on what to do, he has been doing this job for many years and knew what to do.  With your new job description he needs your signature and go ahead to proceed.”

Well, what did that mean!

It means his procedure, set up by who knows, was to spray the flour in the Silos with pesticides to kill the bugs.

Being confused, I asked my boss how did they get the pesticides out of the flour and how did they make the flour clean again from bug feces, etc.

He told me they didn’t.   The FDA said the pesticides were not enough to negatively affect human health and by the time the flour was packaged and reached the grocery store shelves no one ever questioned what those little black specs were or where they came from.

Being really mind blown, I checked around the industry and discovered that was common practice and why did I have a problem with it?  It was normal – everybody did it – and given that fact, they wouldn’t do such if it was problematical or would cause the public health problems.

Well, I didn’t sign off on it – the job description was finally adjusted and we all settled down to a very uncomfortable co-existence.

From that time onward, whenever I go to the store for flour I buy organic whole wheat or organic some other kind of flour whichever has minimum processing of the flour.  That has been my practice since that time in early 1970.  And given the fact that I bake quite a bit, it is possible to make extremely delicious breads, cakes, etc. using only organic whole wheat flour.  All those recipes and comments from Chefs which say you have to add White Flour or your baking won’t come out right are a lot of baloney.  Most recipes, which call for White overly processed flour translate on a one to one basis – they were probably translated from the organic whole wheat lightly milled flour to what we have today. – who said “Without a knowledge of history, we are really seriously handicapped in the way we live.”

We have had several people for breakfast lately who’ve said they don’t eat wheat because their doctor said they were ‘sensitive’.  They didn’t have celiac disease – full blown- according to them, but their ‘sensitivity’ to wheat made them – on their doctors’ advice – eliminate wheat from their diet.

It has occurred to me to question if they are ‘sensitive’ to wheat or if they are ‘sensitive’ to and/or ‘allergic’ to the chemicals used to debug the flour.

I’ve raised the issue, but this pesticide treatment of flour has been a closely guarded secret of the flour processing companies for decades.

There was not this ‘sensitivity’ to flour when I was growing up.  Its only recent that we are running into people who refuse to eat wheat because of it.

Since their doctors have no idea what’s in the wheat – they, I am sure, as well as everybody else  have no clue as to this treatment of wheat.  So, why would they test their patients for a sensitivity to the pesticides sprayed on the wheat before it is packed and shipped.  Why would they look at whether their patients are allergic to the bugs and bug droppings in the wheat when they don’t know that such exists.

It really should be investigate to determine its real affect on humans and investigated by scientists other than those related to the flour industry.

This is one of many stories I have about what happens to our flour.  We all need to be vigilant and on our toes about the food we eat, especially the food which has been processed.  The FDA doesn’t seem to have done such a great job.  But then, maybe I am confused as to whose interest they are protecting!

If you’ve stayed in our home you know some of the other stories about the wheat and the FDA – especially the strawberry story.  I won’t bore you with repeating them.

Good eating!!!  And stay responsible for your health and therefore your diet.  What you eat determines who you are and your present and future health.  Exercise is fine, but it is only about 10 percent of the equation – and – is it so highly touted to be the red herring to throw you off looking at the real problems.

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Conversations about “The Flu”

Monday, January 21st, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

It is amazing how we could be taken over by serious and urgent conversation about something that used to be so common and harmless.  A little worse than a cold, but tolerable and aren’t you glad its over.  A couple days off from work;  lying in bed – reading, eating, sleeping and then all is well.

Today, it is a major catastrophe.  An epidemic of gargantuan size.  A threat to civilizaiton.  The end to life as we know it.

Most of the conversations over breakfast lately have always included something about the flu.  In fact, we have had a couple guests who arrived with the flu who we had to offer to serve them breakfast in bed so the other guests would not revolt and run screaming out of our houses:)

In spite of all the talk, we have not had the flu – or a cold – in three or four years.  Can’t brag about it because that’s when it happens.  However, reflecting on the conversations and seeing how most of it was people who wanted to know how to strengthen their immune systems rather than whether or not they should get a flu shot, we are convinced society will survive this threat.

One thing we have changed in our lifestyle and recommended it several blogs ago – was to give up anti-perspirants and deodorants because we believe they are wicked bad.  Trying to do just that we had about a one month time of being very careful when around other people – not because of the flu, but because we didn’t want to share any obnoxious odors we might generate from having given up antiperspirants and deodorants. We went around smelling under our arms constantly when out and about; getting a bit perplexed when the organic apple cider vinegar we talked about using instead of the anti-perspirants, etc. gave us a hard time because it didn’t hold.

Well, that all worked itself out.  We now don’t even have to think about it.  Taking a shower in the morning – without soap, just plain warm water over the body to get rid of the overnight smells and then splash a little Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother under our arms we are good to go for the day.

Something must happen – the body must adjust and need a couple weeks to get over its dependency on having its under-arm pores plugged with aluminum to keep from smelling,  because after a couple weeks I can go two days without showering and without additional apple cider vinegar and smell just as nice and fresh.

I remember a time in the United States, when I was little, that people went a week without bathing.  Saturday night was the big ‘clean-up’ night.  You bathed – you soaked – you washed your hair – you defoliated and anti-perspirants were not around.  You just didn’t smell bad all week.  Today, with the diet changes, the heavy processed foods we eat, the change from having heavy proteins as another spice in the food to having it as large hunks of meat and all the rest of our new lifestyle, you can’t go a day without a shower – and bathing seems to have gone completely out of style.

There was much talk around the breakfast table about how apple cider vinegar works to quell your underarm odors.  To smell – you perspire and you have all those bacteria on your skin under your arms.  They drink up the sweat and then have to go to the bathroom.  They don’t have constructed houses under your arms with toilets which flush to send their excretions someplace else so you smell the result of their having gone to the bathroom under your arms.  Antiperspirants eliminate that because they plug your pores with aluminum.  Isn’t that supposed to be one of the causes for Alzheimer’s?  Don’t know if that is true, but it was certainly discussed as a causative factor.  Apple cider vinegar works because it is anti-bacterial and probably kills the bacteria so they have no need to go to the bathroom under your arm pits.

The most common vinegar talked about was Bragg’s Organic Apple Cider Vinegar.  They have a health program and someone from the company who goes around and gives talks about staying healthy the “Bragg” way.

The television commercials are all cautioning you to wash your hands and showing people with piles of soap suds on their hands over a sink.  We don’t wash our hands with soap and water.  That makes things worse.  All of your protective oils are washed away and for minutes after your fervent washing of hands all the germs in the world can come and find a home on your unprotected skin.  We ‘wash’ our hands with Organic Apple Cider Vinegar and it works wonders for the skin.  Sometimes, we even splash a little on our face taking care not to get it in the eyes because the burning will be fierce – we know because we’ve been there – done that.

Other than the vinegar as deodorant – the rest of the conversation was about the changes in our lifestyles and our environment, which seem to be breaking down our bodies at a very rapid pace, while we engage in denial.  Others are worried about global warming – we are worried about poor health becoming a way of life in these United States and then around the globe since we seem to export our lifestyle universally.

We wish you good health and hope you avoid this ‘epidemic’.  We also hope you will continue to read Bettina Network’s Blog and pass it around to all of your friends, colleagues, family and those you wish well.

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Cleaning Wood Furniture

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

I read and followed your blog on Cleaning Wood furniture from February, 2010.  If you want to refresh your memory the address is http://bettina-network.com/blog/?m=201002 or check on the left side of this page and click on February 2010.  I would like to make a suggestion for change.  We started using your method and got great results.  Recently, we talked to friends of ours who suggested we substitute Walnut Oil for the Olive Oil or add half and half – half Olive Oil to half Walnut Oil and then add the lemongrass oil.

We tried this with a soft cloth on a piece of wood furniture and it worked really great.  We also tried plain Walnut Oil instead of Olive Oil and that worked just as well.

Because I like Walnut Oil better than Olive Oil I think I will continue to use the Walnut Oil for cleaning and polishing wood furniture.  My friend cautioned me against using Walnut Oil because she said it ‘stinks.”  Nothing could stink as badly as the petroleum derivative oils that most use on their wood furniture.  It is amazing what we humans can become accustomed to as normal and refuse to change or find the change inferior.

I tried using lemon juice and that was phenomenal, but I don’t always feel up to squezing a lemon and mixing it with the oils.  Using just a few drops of essential lemongrass oil was simpler.  The essential oil was one addition that I thought was super.

Thanks for your blog.  It causes me to experiment and I have found several new possibilities which are healthier than what I was doing.  This Walnut Oil – Olive Oil – Essential Lemongrass Oil is one of the best I’ve found.  Its quick, easy, much cheaper than the commercial preparations – which I believe are harmful to your health and certainly ruin your hands.  What makes me angry is that I have to pay much money to have my hands and health ruined while they spend my money on marketing to get me to buy an inferior product.  This made my hands soft and beautiful as a result of oiling my furniture – who knew!  It might even mitigate my getting a manicure so often!

If your readers have a hard time finding essential lemongrass oil they might try Frontier Co-op.  Aura Cacia, whose products are offered through Frontier, sells essential lemongrass oil.  Instead of the .5 bottles, you might contact them for 4 ounces, which makes more sense with this use for the essential oil.  I love essential oil of lavendar and maybe one day I will try that when I oil my wood furniture, but for today I will stick with essential lemongrass oil.

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A Fantastic Diet for Good Health!

Friday, September 21st, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

We have discovered, through many conversations with guests, an incredible diet to end all diets.  We have put this together as we gleaned information a little at a time and experimented to make sure this is workable.

It does work for a couple of us, but we aren’t guaranteeing, advising, or anything else, just reporting on what we’ve observed and experienced.

We started to hear about limes when a guest from India talked about her need to have limes in the afternoon because it was advised by her nutritionist who she absolutely trusted.  So we found a source for organic limes for her and every afternoon she would squeeze four limes into a cup and drink the juice.

We knew about having an organic lemon squeezed into a cup of warm water and drinking that first thing in the morning to get your day started on the right foot and your body regulated – through a regular morning trip to the bathroom.  We didn’t know anything about limes except for the jokes about the English ‘Limeys’.

Later came others who looked for lemons and limes – never organic – but we added that to what they were doing and suggested that might be a better way than just ordinary limes and lemons that you didn’t know what was sprayed, dug into the dirt, washed into the fruit and that would show up in later years affecting your health in bad ways.  And they would thank us, take their lemons and limes in various ways and on different time tables to be able to travel and live without a sluggishness which brought them to their regimen with the lemons and limes in the first place.

We began to notice something amazing as we tried to do the same thing – varying it with every guests’ different usage to test for ourselves.

As we tried all these different regimens and combinations of ways to use lemons and limes, we found our weight dropping even when nothing else in our diet or lifestyle changed. We even had one guest  use a lemon to rub on his face in the mornings after shaving.  He was cute!  We noticed it when he came to breakfast with a couple lemon bits still on his skin.  When we asked what he’d been doing with the lemons – after an initial embarrassment he admitted to using one lemon each morning to smooth over his face to deal with any cuts or etc. that he might accumulate.  Another guest used cut lemons to rub on her elbows and knees.  And there were more!  It has been a great learning for us!!!

What we have taken from all of these possibilities:

First thing in the morning, we have a lemon or lime with the juice squeezed and put into a half-cup of warm water.

Throughout the day we also have lemon or lime juice – organic, of course, – and at very particular times, which we feel is the secret to this ‘diet’.

When we come in from meetings, shopping, working in the garden, doing whatever that has made us ravenously hungry and pushes us to         reach for any and everything we can to satisfy that hunger .- Instead of reaching for those 5 cookies, ice cream, instant whatever that can quench the thirst and hunger, we stop, have one lemon or lime squeezed into a half-glass of warm water and our hunger and thirst is satiated enough that we can think before we reach for those diet disasters and health saboteurs.   We have the time and space to work through putting together a substantial, organic meal or snack before we move on to the next thing.

What we’ve found – not only is our hunger satisfied with that half-cup of freshly squeezed organic juice with warm water – but our energy is revived and we are ready to continue our day.

I’ve found that two or three such lemon/lime pick-me-ups during the day satisfies my needs, but it also has me losing weight.  Not because I am dieting, but because when I have gone longer than I should have without eating, my hunger and thirst don’t lead me to poor choices.  It gives me space to think through what it is I need to eat and time to prepare whatever my choice.  I also look better.  Somehow, there is a shining through from this regimen that is fantastic.  No make-up could do for me what is done to me by those half-cups of juice and warm water.  I use half-cups because it is so sour that is all I can get down at one time.  And no, I don’t want to use those ‘helpers’ that make lemons taste like sugary confections.  Over time, I am becoming more accustomed to the sour taste and my sugar tastes are becoming intolerable of that really sweet stuff.  Before this, nothing was too sweet for me and I could never pass a cookie without picking one or two or three up and carrying them away with me.

A couple other friends, who have tried the same thing, have come back looking better, feeling better and are proselytizing their friends in this new way of taking care of their body’s nutritional needs and staying off the bad stuff.

One organic lemon or lime squeezed using a glass juicer – you know the kind, – non-electric, manual labor needed – with 1/2 cup warm water added and off you go to a new life.

If you have a difficult time finding a glass lemon juicer – we found this one and many more at www.laurelleaffarm.com/pages/kitchen&table/antique-glass-reamer-1909-patent.htm

Photo of old antique glass reamer, orange or lemon juicer w/ 1909 patent date

 

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“I Tried The Food in Your Blog Post”

Monday, August 13th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

“I tried some of the suggestions in your blog posts and have had great results in the health department.

I was worried about my high blood pressure – I clocked in at 159 and in spite of exercise and eating less, my blood pressure didn’t move down.  So I figured, what the heck, I’ll try to couple things I read about in your blog.

Stocked up on hibiscus tea – but not the tea you buy in the store which says hibiscus tea and is really a little hibiscus mixed with a lot of regular tea – I bought dried hibiscus flower petals, poured hot water over them and let them sit awhile.  I drank that tea all day.  I also bought huge amounts of Ceylon Cinnamon – organic, of course – and at night had a warm cup of organic milk mixed with a heaping teaspoon of the cinnamon and a spoon full of sugar.  I mixed that well and it was a great drink.

I love rice and switched to organic brown rice, which was great, but it really didn’t hit my family in its sweet spot until I put organic turmeric in the rice when I started it cooking.  One cup of rice to 2 1/2 cups water, a little himalayan salt – a teaspoon, actually, – and two heaping teaspoons of turmeric.  At first I wondered what on earth am I doing because I served this to guests and they looked at the rice as though it was going to jump up and bite them.  It was very yellow and to me it looked fantastic.  We all enjoyed the rice immensely because it had a taste, which the white rice I had been cooking was totally tasteless and probably destroying my health in the process.  I served the rice with organic green peas on the side.  I wanted to serve a side dish everybody likes so the meal wouldn’t be too strange.

I have added those three things to my diet and my blood pressure is now 125.  A tip for those who want to know their blood pressure on a constant basis and you don’t want to buy a blood pressure thing you wrap around your arm – everytime you go to a store like CVS or  one like a CVS they usually have a blood pressure machine next to the pharmacy and you can take your blood pressure for free.  You can also stand on their foot machine and see what’s going on with your feet.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you folks for this blog. Never would I have thought of dried hibiscus petals as a tea to deal with my high blood pressure.  And the rice and turmeric is really sensational.  I don’t know what it does, but it looks like its doing something very important inside my body and I will never have white rice again nor white wheat nor white pasta and all three of those things will have their share of turmeric put in during the cooking process.  Great information!”

Ed. Note:  You can buy organic ceylon cinnamon, the dried hibiscus flower petals and organic turmeric at Frontier Coop via mail – www.frontiercoop.com

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Aloe Vera and Coconut Oil

Sunday, July 29th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

“Thanks for your blog.  I ‘ve found this great combination and want to share it with your readers!

I’ve been using Coconut Oil as a massage oil for quite some time.  I started when the research started to come out that Coconut Oil had been given a bad rap.  It would be interesting to know who sabotaged the reputation of a really great health-giving oil.  You can use it as a cosmetic, to cook with (great for those who can’t have dairy), and for many other uses.

There are claims that coconut oil helps Alzheimer’s.  I don’t know if that is true or not, but I always rub coconut oil vigorously into my scalp after I shower and wash my hair.  It makes my hair look fantastic.  But then I have naturally curly hair.  For those of you with naturally straight hair – you unfortunate few – I would think if you massaged it into your scalp before you washed your hair (at night before you go to bed) and then wash it out when you bathe or shower in the mornings before going out it should work wonders for you too.

Being sold on the benefits of coconut oil, you can imaging how excited I was to discover the good benefits I found from combining aloe vera gel and coconut oil.

I give myself a massage with aloe vera gel – you could do the same with the juice or the whole plant, both are available in organic food stores.  And, make sure you get the organic kind.  You don’t want to massage anything into your skin, showing up in your blood stream, which has ingredients in it you can’t pronounce.

After the aloe vera gel massage I give myself another massage with coconut oil.  I don’t know what it does, but the results make me look quite stunning and well rested.  I know it isn’t harming me or giving me a temporary fix so I heartily recommend the combination.  You can especially see what this combination does when you use it on your face.  Your face needs much more attention because it is exposed constantly – this has helped me tremendously – it also helps me in the energy department.

P. S. I haven’t used the Bettina Network for bed and breakfast yet, but I am going to call you for my next trip.  Thanks again for this blog I like the way you will present many different views.  You must have all kinds of people staying in your homes – it is so rare to find a place which gives exposure to all instead of one small point of view.  You would never succeed running for Congress.”

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Apple Cider Vinegar Uses

Wednesday, June 6th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

In response to a guest request for uses for Apple Cider Vinegar:

There are thousands of ways to use Apple Cider Vinegar – both for health and cleaning purposes.  We have zeroed in on only a few because we need to test everything before we put it out on the blog.  Needless to say, we use Organic Apple Cider Vinegar

If you search Bettina Network’s Blog under the category ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ you will find uses we have previously published in this blog.  You can also find other uses for Apple Cider Vinegar if you search the internet.  There are several really good books – some out of print, but discoverable in estate sales – written decades ago, which are fantastic.

The huge use, – the one we find that has infinite health benefits is the use of Organic Apple Cider Vinegar as a deodorant/anti perspirant.  (No, you can’t substitute White Vinegar – not even Organic White Vinegar).

I believe we have a blog on this and we have had ongoing trials with different people using it.  Now that the weather has turned really warm, we have found that using a little Apple Cider Vinegar splashed under your arms after a shower will keep you feeling cool and odor free.  We have also found that when your energy starts to flatten, another splash of apple cider vinegar under the arms and a little rubbed on the face will bring your energy up in dramatic ways.

It is amazing how something so cheap and so totally effective would not be used by millions.  Are we so detached from the ways of our grandparents that instead of following their lead, which they acquired from following their parents and grandparents, we are the generation which follows those whose job it has been to market the latest to us.  The latest things to pad the pockets of the few at the expense of the health, well-being and financial resources of the many?

We all are using one of the many Deodorants and Anti-Perspirants on the market.  That says a lot for the success of the marketing campaigns which have been aimed at making us think if we didn’t use the products they are currently marketing we would smell bad, be considered amoral and the ‘good’ people of the world would not want us around.

In fact, if we use the products being promoted for our use with beautiful women, flowery scenes, romantic music, comedy and/or cutesiness there are serious possible health problems involved.  We worked hardest in trying to discover some way to live in public around other people and not smell nor cause ourselves health problems into the future.  When we heard the way anti-perspirants work is to clog your pores with aluminum, we threw out the anti-perspirants and deodorants – no matter how good the marketing and advertising.  Apparently,  you don’t smell because the perspiration and bacteria which eats the perspiration causing the odor can’t get started because you can’t perspire.  We always thought that perspiration was a natural bodily function with a reason to preserve your health and well being.

That freaked us out.  Especially since we have heard the stories about Aluminum being one of the contributors to starting Alzheimer’s, plus a long line of other health problem possibilities.

We have had feed back from a few people in the Bettina Network about using Apple Cider Vinegar first thing in the morning – a little in a glass of water and drink it down – but we haved no way to know if and how this is effective, so we will stick with the use of Apple Cider Vinegar as a very effective deodorant.

We also find it good to use cleaning house.  We use it with Olive Oil.  The Olive Oil poured on OOOO steel wool will clean and wax the furniture and Apple Cider Vinegar does an excellent job at washing  walls and etc.

In a Bettina Network home you will find a bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar in the bathrooms with a rag for you to use to clean the bathtub.  The homes have clean bathrooms, but many guests, when they travel, don’t take a bath, in spite of wanting to take a bath and being accustomed to baths instead of showers.  They are afraid of the tub and assume the hotel and/or the bed & breakfast and/or the inn, etc. could possibly not have cleaned the tub the way they would like it clean.  Since the Apple Cider Vinegar is a disinfectant, we came upon the idea of putting a bottle in the bathrooms so guests can use it anyway they see fit.

Another use we have for Apple Cider Vinegar is in the clothes washer.  We put in the detergent and fill the softener container with Apple Cider Vinegar to help clean and disinfect the wash – the sheets, towels, etc.

Doing just those few things will dramatically reduce your cleaning budget and increase the cleanliness and germ-freeness of your home.  It will be pleasant smelling – no off-gases – nothing to hurt your hands or get into your blood stream and wreck havoc producing illnesses you become baffled by because you can’t figure out their genesis.

We have heard about using it to rinse your hair and do all kind of other things, but the above is what we are trying and getting feed back from so it is all we can talk about at the moment.

Hope this helps.  Let us know if you find other uses, we love the feeback and try all suggestions (within reason).  It helps us and others and will probably wind up in a blog.  If it does, we will give you credit or post it anonymously, if you don’t want your name used.

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Stay Cool on a Hot Day!

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

Summer is coming and so are the hot days of Summer.

I have found a way to stay cool most of the day and add to my general health and beauty at the same time.

I take a shower and follow it with a massage of organic Aloe Vera Gel.  It is fantastic.

I read in your blog where you talked about this massage, but I couldn’t handle it then because it was cold weather when I read it and when I tried to massage with the Aloe Vera I almost froze it was so cold when I tried to put it on my body.

It dawned on me that this might be a great treat for myself when there is hot weather so I waited and just tried it on a fairly hot day.  I was very cool after the shower – which is generally not the case for me in hot weather – I will start to perspire almost immediately out of the shower.  I was left with a really coolness around me all morning.

I also got many comments from people who told me how great I looked.  Since I had on jeans and an old shirt I wasn’t sure where the compliments were coming from – the only thing I did different was the organic Aloe Vera Gel massage.  You also talked about Lakewood – so that is what I bought and used.  I liked that it was not made from a concentrate, but from the actual juice of the plant and not preserved with a chemical whose name I couldn’t pronounce.  So, for what its worth —- and thanks for the blog.  I liked being able to send this to you to share.  I have my own blog, but no one reads it – except for a few family members and I wanted to share this with a lot of people.  It is impressive the number of people who read your blog.

Hope all of you readers try this – it is a great experience.  One I will use all summer.

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email info@bettina-network.com

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Washing Linens, Towels and everything else

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

We have been trying for several years to come up with the best way to wash bed linens and bathroom towels – because that is important in bed & breakfast.

We were especially concerned about having soft towels and the smell which we sometimes could not get out of the sheets without several washings.

We tried every fabric softener on the market.  They all do the same thing and none really great.  -They give the towels, particularly, a slimy feel rather than a clean fluffy feel.  The towels, after they have been through the wash with fabric softener, are too soft and too greasy to think that is a good solution.  Having done a bit of research on this, I find that is because the fibers are coated with chemicals – that can’t be good!  Especially when the results we were trying to achieve were not happening.  And, what happens to the chemicals which coat the towel fabric?  Do they go on your face when you wipe with the towels?  Or on other parts of the body?

Trying to wash towels and bed linens without a fabric softener left the towels really scratchy and uncomfortable to use.  You wouldn’t want to wrap up in the very large bath towels because that would not meet the ‘feel good warm and cozy’ test.

We received many suggestions about putting White Vinegar into the rinse water.  However, after having worked with White Vinegar and knowing from whence it has come, we discarded that idea.

We put organic apple cider vinegar with the ‘mother’,  in the washing machine in the small box which asks for fabric softener.

We fully expected to ruin all of the clothes in the machine because we expected there would be residue from the organic apple cider vinegar, especially since we were using the ‘mother’ so we couldn’t think beyond = ‘there goes the wash’.

We couldn’t use a lot of the apple cider vinegar because the container of our LG Washing machine would only hold what seemed to be less than 1/4 cup, so while we tried it anyway, our hopes were not high for success.

The results, however,  were spectacular.

With bed & breakfast guests, some  are exceptionally clean and their bedding doesn’t have an odor when they leave.  Some people, even though they wash, leave behind an odor in the sheets which doesn’t always leave after the sheets have been through the wash,  so we have been super concerned to get the odors out.  Basically, we assumed if there was an odor there was bacteria still in the sheets and towels.

Putting organic apple cider vinegar in the fabric softener container of the washing machine solved the problem.  And weren’t we surprised!!  We found organic apple cider vinegar worked wonders as an anti-perspirant, but we couldn’t make the leap to the washing machine.

When the clothes came out of the washer, there was no odor left in any of the sheets, towels or clothes.  The towels were softened to perfection.  They had no slimy feel, which happened when we used commercial fabric softeners.  We don’t have to worry about people being allergic to the linens or towels because of how and with what they were washed and the towels were neither too soft nor too hard and scratchy.  The towels were sturdy enough to allow one to dry one’s face when you wanted a little roughness to get the blood circulating, but not much.  And they were soft and nice enough to please those who wanted soft towels.  The same thing happened to the bathrobes.  They are perfect after coming out of the organic apple cider vinegar rinse.

My great-grandmother used to put her clothes through a vinegar rinse – I should have had more respect and given her the credit she deserved for the things she knew and did.  Is this how sexism works? – hand and glove with the marketing and advertising machine?  If young people don’t learn the lessons from their families, but from what used to be called “Madison Avenue” we are all doomed to destruction- a slow excruciatingly painful destruction via cancer, and all the other degenerative diseases.

How fantastic is it to find something your great-grandmother used on a daily basis with no bells and whistles.  That was just how she did things.  It can make you feel kind of foolish to know what you have looked all over creation for was right under your nose from the time you were a child.  I have the marketing and advertising people to thank for that, along with the forces in society which made me turn to my peers rather than my family to learn these kinds of lessons.  Now I understand why Martha Stewart became such a phenom.  All the lessons we didn’t learn and when we turned around to try to back track to learn them we could not break through the veil. The silence from our families could not be bridged.

I used to think my grandmother and great-grandmother were really out of touch with today’s society and here I find if I turn back to try to remember what they did, it is safer, purer and better for all of us.  Now, not everything they did is so relevant, but I will be going over their lifestyle as I remember it to see what else I can salvage.  I am sure many of you have or are experiencing the same thing.  Give your mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers credit, gratitude and thanks.

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